Gents Journey
Gents Journey
Master Your Morning: Transform Your Routine for Success and Growth
Unlock the secrets to starting your day with intention and transform your mornings into a powerhouse of productivity and growth. Ever wondered how successful people use their mornings to set the tone for success? Discover the compelling strategies and habits that can help you reclaim your day from the moment you wake up. This episode of the Gentleman's Journey podcast is your guide to mastering a morning routine that not only boosts your productivity but also enhances your mindset and self-confidence.
Learn how the night before plays a pivotal role in setting up a seamless morning. We dive into practical tips for evening preparation, such as laying out clothes and prepping breakfast, to reduce morning decision fatigue. Explore the art of creating enjoyable morning rituals instead of mundane checklists, and understand why consistency—even on weekends—is crucial for achieving lasting positive change in your daily life. With a focus on rhythm over rigidity, you'll uncover how small, intentional shifts can lead to major transformations.
Finally, embrace the power of a well-structured morning routine in impacting personal growth and productivity. We explore the benefits of incorporating regular exercise, defeating the snooze button habit, and tracking small victories to maintain momentum. Plus, learn how to connect with me, Anthony, for personalized guidance on your path to becoming a true gentleman. Your journey to self-improvement starts with mastering your morning, and I'm here to support you every step of the way.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today you know we're going to talk about something that really makes a massive difference in your life. I know I've been saying that every episode, but this really does too, because it all kind of stacks upon each other and once you know how to master this part of your day, it really sets up the rest of your day for success. So what is this that I'm talking about? I'm talking about mastering your morning routine and really how that starts your day with success before your day starts. So you know, I'm going to say something like one of these things that always sticks out in my mind and this is going to probably age me but there used to be, like I don't know if it was Marines or the armies, it was a military commercial probably back in the late 80s, early 90s, and it kind of comes back again once in a while where it says we get more done than anybody else by 9 in the morning and that's because they wake up at 4. They're very regimented and they get all their stuff really pretty much done before nine, right, because they've mastered their morning. Well, it's kind of like this they say that the way you start your morning, it really shapes the life you want to live.
Speaker 1:Because here's the thing. Think about it for a second right. Most of us roll out of bed. What's the first thing we do? Check our phones, right, and then one of you once we check our phones, we get a text message, we look at an email, we look at a DM we got, whatever the case is, and then we dive right into the chaos. Right, and I'm going to be honest with you. That used to be me, right, I'd be reactive, I'd be rushed and I would always wonder, like why are my days, why are they all over the place? Why do they feel like so scattered? Why are they all over the place? Why they feel like so so scattered? Right, but here's the thing once I changed how I approached my mornings, everything shifted, and I mean everything shifted. My productivity, my mindset, even my confidence in myself and what I could do started to climb. And that's all because I decided to take control of the first hour of my day.
Speaker 1:You know, because here's the thing, you know, we're talking about in this episode today. You know, the biggest thing is I want to teach you how to build a morning routine. But more biggest thing is, I want to teach you how to build a morning routine, but, more than anything, I want to teach you how to build a morning routine that sticks Sorry about that, I had to get a drink, you know. Because when you're doing this, your morning routine should not feel forced or rigid. They should be very simple and it should be a powerful ritual that you do that sets you up to win the day every single day. Because if you've been feeling that you've been feeling at your mornings or that you've been feeling at your days, look at your mornings, just look at them, and I'm going to tell you, once you start applying this stuff that I'm going to teach you today, you are going to master your mornings, which means you're going to live with more clarity, more purpose and, more than anything else, more energy, which I know we could all use a lot of.
Speaker 1:Right Now, here's the thing you know there's a lot of science behind mornings, right, there's a lot of. You know we've been talking about habit formations lately, right, and if you look at anybody that is successful anybody, you look at any CEO, you look at any doctor, you look at anybody that is making a lot of money or that has not only success but sustained success. They all have an amazing morning routine that they follow, no matter what. No matter what, right. Because, like I'll say, like this, for me personally, right, when I'm doing my morning routine, you know and I know I've talked about it here before you know, I meditate, I visualize, I journal, I do all these things first Because, like to me, when you're doing this kind of stuff, think of it like you're building momentum, right? Or you could say like you're building your confidence in the day, right. So you're building yourself up to do what it is you need to do in the day.
Speaker 1:But you get to start right, you get to practice, you get to really visualize, you get to focus and all those things you want to get done first, without interruption, usually starts in the morning. It starts before your real day starts, because most people I'll give you an example I know a lot of people, let's say they go to work at 7.30, 8 o'clock in the morning. Guess what time they're waking up. They're usually waking up at 7,. If they go to work at 7.30, right, or maybe 6.45, or if they're going to work at 8 o'clock, they wake up at 7.15. What that gives them enough room unless they have, you know, unless they have a long way to drive it gives them enough time to take a shower, brush your teeth, get your clothes on, get out the door and you may or may not have food involved.
Speaker 1:Or what we always do or I know a lot of people that do this, I should say is that we do the Starbucks run. We're five to ten minutes late to work and you'll get your boss a coffee or your co-worker a coffee coffee who you may or may not be screwing over for that first 10 or 15 minutes, right, but you giving them that coffee, it's your kind of like wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Hey, I know I'm late, but here's an I'm sorry gift, right, but you have to understand that people don't like that right and it says a lot about you. People don't like that right and it says a lot about you. It says the fact that you don't know how to master your mornings and you're in the position that you're in right now because of that and we got to change that. You got to change that right, because if you win your morning, you will win your day. I'll say that again If you can win the morning, you will win your day. Winning your morning sets you up for success, I promise you. I promise you that. So let's talk about the first step, right? Or you can say building block. However you want to look at this as, to look at this as to build a morning routine that sticks Step one right.
Speaker 1:Start the night before, start the night before, or you can call it, I call it evening prep, right? So a great morning starts the night before. So here's what you do Prepare your clothes, like already. Pick out what you're going to wear in the morning, right. Write your to-do lists and visualize your next day. Another thing you could do, too, like, with that you could already, let's say, you can make your eggs that night, right. If you have eggs and you microwave them in the morning, yeah, and then you make, just make your toast. Or if you're doing oatmeal, do overnight oats. I'm telling you, yeah, and then you just make your toast. Or if you're doing oatmeal, do overnight oats. I'm telling you, overnight oats are amazing, right. The more you can prepare at night, the day before, it really benefits you throughout your day. I'm telling you that, I'm telling you. I'm telling you, I'm telling you it works, works, works, works, works.
Speaker 1:Now, because here's the thing If you set your environment up for success I know that sounds familiar, because we talked about this last episode right, small changes, like laying out your clothes, can remove decision fatigue. How many times have you got out of the shower? Right? You're watching a YouTube video in the shower yes, I know you do that, right. Or you're listening to music in the shower and now you're like, oh my God, what am I gonna wear? And you have this closet full of clothes, but you really just wear these five things, right?
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing If you make that decision the night before, now, you just get in your clothes and now. You don't have to make that decision right and think about it. Now you've got your clothes on. Now you don't have to make that decision right and think about it. Now you've got your clothes on, now you're going to the next thing. You just you have your overnight oats. Boom, if you want a microwave, that's great or not, you can just eat them right there. You can actually drink them. Or if your eggs have already been done the night before, you already have like on a little breakfast plate you put them in the microwave for a minute. You're eating your bacon, you know, or toast, or whatever it is that you're eating, right. And now you can make your coffee right. Let's say, like a little Nespresso, or everyone has a Keurig right. That takes like two minutes to do. Bam, now you made your coffee. Now you have done more in that time from that morning because you set yourself up the night before for success. Think about that Right Now.
Speaker 1:Here's something I'm going to tell you If you're going to win your day, especially win your morning, you got to wake up earlier. I know I'm sorry you can't sleep in. You got to go to bed earlier the night before. Okay, waking up early, but gradually, is going to be a huge benefit. Here's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Let's say you want to start getting up. Let's say you have to be at work at 7.30. Let's say you want to start getting up at 6, right. And let's say, right now you get up at 7, right.45 because you give yourself 40 minutes to get ready. So instead of waking up at 6.45. The next day you're going to wake up at 6.30. That 15 minutes could be a massive change for you, right?
Speaker 1:You do that for a couple days. Actually, you do that for a week, right. Then what will start to happen is you'll start to notice you will get up before your alarm will in that week. Right, because your body can adjust to this stuff pretty quickly. Now, the next week, instead of getting up at 6.30, you get up at 6.15. Bam, you do it again. Right Now. You're doing that for a week. Then now you get to the 6 am club. Now you do that for a week and you'll be amazed how your body will adjust and how you, in the back of your mind, will start to tell, like you know, maybe me watching a marathon of breaking bad, you know and going to bed at two o'clock maybe isn't the best decision, right, because you will start to get into a habit of laying out your clothes, getting everything done because you will love the ease of your morning. Like, easing into your morning is really the best gift you can give yourself. Honestly, especially in these crazy times right Now.
Speaker 1:You know, the thing about it is is like when we're doing that, remember, everything in this routine is about building consistency. Remember, consistency builds momentum. So waking up at the same time here's the thing too. You got to do it on the weekends as well, right, you got to do it. I'm telling you, you do this even on the weekends, and now you have your day, which is yours, getting up early, maybe going for a walk, meditating, you know, trying out different things. You weekend that you could apply to your next week routine. I'm telling you game changer, game changer, now step three, or number three, however you want to look at it.
Speaker 1:One thing that people really get confused on when they're doing this is that they create a checklist and not a ritual. Okay, now, a checklist is I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this. No, no, no, that's not what this is. Creating a ritual is. It's a better way of building your habit, right, because, remember, when we're anchoring a habit, we have to do something that we enjoy, right, like I enjoy, like reading and meditation and journaling, right? I've also gotten to stretching because I'm not a very flexible person, right, but I do those things I feel better. So let me just give you an example of something that I do, something that I do right.
Speaker 1:So, when I'm doing my stuff, when I first get up, obviously, you know I go in, I meditate, you know I visualize, right, then I meditate, then I start stretching, so I start creating movement, then I do my push-ups and my sit-ups and my squats, push-ups and my sit-ups and my squats, right. Then, once I do that, now I've got everything going. Then what I do as I listen to an audio book when I'm in the shower, then I say my affirmations in the mirror, right, and then, once I've done like those two things, then I'm trying to learn something. So it'd be like I might be another audio book on. Like you know, right now I'm trying to, you know, really learn how to speak better Spanish. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So that's something that I'm doing, right, but that's all happening within the first 40 minutes of me being up, those things right there, right, because here's the thing, because we're talking about momentum, especially in the morning, when you start stacking these early wins, when you start approaching work, because you've already built this momentum, work becomes like this boom, boom, boom. You start to answer your emails, you start to answer your phone calls, you start to answer your text messages, anything that has to do with your work. You just bang, bang, bang. You start banging stuff out because you've already built the momentum to get there beforehand. You know what I mean and here's the thing too, and this is something a lot of people make a huge either they don't know or they make a mistake on right, and either way is okay, because we're here to learn right. Make a mistake on right, and either way is okay, because we're here to learn right.
Speaker 1:But you have to limit your decision-making early, right? Because I'm going to tell you right now, decision fatigue is absolutely real. How many times have you been with a significant other, right, and you've had a long day. They've had a long day, they've had a long day. They don't want to cook. You don't want to cook. So what do we ask? These fit?
Speaker 1:This famous thing, or it should be three words what's for dinner? Or what are you making for dinner? Or what are we doing about? It's going to be something with dinner, right? And then you name off all the places and guess what? Nothing sounds good. If you're already at a place like hey, I'm going to get Chinese food, what do you want? Or hey, you're already at whatever four restaurants that you eat at every week, right, and you already know what they want. Hey, I'm getting the number one. Do you want it with or without pickle? That's it. You know what I mean. Doing those kind of things is what's going to really help you Decision making. Fatigue is super real. Right? Because, especially in the morning, if you can start to minimize your unnecessary choices by automating your breakfast, right, so you already have it done the night before, you've already had your clothes picked out and you already know what your first tasks are on the day, because it's just a ritual. Your day becomes so much more easier. I'm telling you, the fewer choices you have, the more energy you can serve. So I'm going to put this in another thing too.
Speaker 1:For us fashion conscious folks out there, do you want to know why a lot of people live like in uniform? And what I mean by that is, like you see someone who they kind of the same style Like most guys. What do they wear? They usually wear a gray, black or white shirt with jeans and either black, white or gray or maybe red shoes. Right? Just, maybe get something crazy. That's the uniform, because they can't really think of anything else. You look at Steve Jobs what did he wear? He wore a black turtleneck and denim jeans. You look at the guy who does Facebook, right, mark Zuckerberg. He wears a t-shirt and pants. It's usually a gray t-shirt. So they understand the decision fatigue. I don't care if they look great or not. They've applied this to their lives and this will help them become the people they are.
Speaker 1:So I'm not saying you have to only wear one thing every single day, but if you can do it the night before, it eliminates your decision fatigue. Because guess what, if you are wasting your decisions right Because you only have a certain capacity of how many decisions you can make a day, and you're wasting those precious decisions in the morning on things that could really be rectified the night before, you're not doing yourself any favors right Now. Here's the next thing. Is you really got to start moving your body right? And there's so many? Oh gosh.
Speaker 1:I was reading this one today where it was talking about if you do 30 minutes of exercise compared to someone who doesn't, they found that you increase the gray matter in your or. More was it like more gray matter becomes available in your brain. More was it like more gray matter becomes available in your brain like 20 to 30% more compared to someone who doesn't do it. Gray matter is what is like the building blocks of, of like you remembering stuff, your ability to learn your brain or wire things. It's all with your gray matter. So it's the stuff that your brain uses essentially, essentially Telling you, just moving around just for a little bit, it'll do yourself and your mind a huge favor. So, please, please, please, do that. You know, just do some. You know, go out and walk the block, do some light stretching, do some yoga. You know I'm telling you you're doing yourself a favor by doing that, because here's the thing I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know, I think I saw this on a shirt or on a billboard or something like that, and it's just so true in this case, right now. It said something to the fact like, oh gosh, it was like your energy is your responsibility, don't neglect it, something to that effect right Now.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing, and I'm going to tell you, we've all been addicted to this, especially if you're just new to the morning club right, the snooze button addiction. I talked about this in the last episode where I place my phone on the other side of a room, that I have to get up and go and turn my alarm off. Right, I have to do that Now, because I'm already out of bed now, I that I have to get up and go and turn my alarm off, right? I have to do that Now because I'm already out of bed. Now. I don't want to get back into bed because I'm already up. I'm already going, I already got my phone, I'm already going, right. So don't place your phone right next to you. You can just hit the snooze button and go back to sleep. Place it across the room. You're doing yourself a favor by doing that, right?
Speaker 1:If you feel very lethargic in the morning, something that helps me out is, you know, like I said, do some stretching, because I'm not a very flexible person right now, and I do some light breathing exercises. As I'm doing that, and then I get into, like, my meditation and my visualization. I'm telling you they've never been better just because I'm doing that. Sorry, I had to get another drink there. So the other thing, too and this is something that will affect you especially in the beginning is you're like gosh. I feel like I can't stick to this routine.
Speaker 1:The reason why you can't stick to this routine, the reason why you can't stick to this routine or any routine that you build, is because you're not tracking the small wins that you're getting from it. Right, you have to understand you, tracking these small wins and being flexible is what's gonna help your success. Because you have to understand this is not about rigidity, it's about rhythm. Right, you get into a rhythm of doing this. You're not going to want to stop, I promise you that. So you don't have to be super rigid, but getting yourself into the rhythm of doing this is what's going to really help you stick to this. It's what's going to help your routine stick, I promise.
Speaker 1:Now, here's the thing too. I'm going to tell you this will have such a massive effect on your life and I can just say for me personally just by doing this, it's made me not only a better person, but it's made me financially better. Because here's the thing when you can start being intentional with how your morning starts and how that leads to making better decisions, and then, from making those decisions, it starts to improve your mood because it improves your confidence, and then you start to see increased productivity during the day. Right, what you start to notice is that first hour of your day shapes the next 23 of it. That's what you start to notice. And here's other people that are going to start taking notice your friends, your family, but, most importantly, work are going to start taking notice your friends, your family, but, most importantly, work is going to start taking notice because you're just going to start doing leadership things right and then they're going to start giving you more stuff on your plate and you're like, oh, this isn't fair. Well, guess what? They're just building your decision-making skills to be a better person, better individual, to where you can become a leader. And then, guess what? Leaders are the ones that get paid, usually right.
Speaker 1:Or if you're in sales, you start making more money from sales because, guess what? You show up earlier. It starts to become important. You start making good money, whatever it is. You start to actually build a foundation of chasing your dreams. That's how important this is. You want to make six figures, you want to be a millionaire, you want to be all those air things. It starts with your morning routine. It just does, and anybody that tells you differently has a crappy morning routine and don't listen to them.
Speaker 1:Okay Now, since we're talking about this, right, here's what I'm going to implore you to do and it's going to really be beneficial to you. Pick three, not one, not two. Pick three simple habits for your morning and start to do them for the next week. If you start to do this, you start to build a momentum. Guess what? Everything else is going to start falling in line for you.
Speaker 1:Because here's the thing I need you to understand about this as we close this off that mastering your morning is not about perfection. Mastering your morning is not about perfection. It's about your intention. I'll say that again Mastering your morning has nothing to do about perfection. It has everything to do about intention. Remember that. So I want to thank you so, so, so very much for listening today.
Speaker 1:You know, if you have any questions, please never hesitate to reach out to me. There's multiple different ways. First way, obviously, there's a site where you can text us. Text me. I'll be more than happy to have a conversation with you, right? If you have any questions or anything like this on the podcast. Second way, you can email me. My email is anthonyatgentsjourneycom. The last way you can reach me right, or maybe the best way, who knows Is you can go to my Instagram. My Instagram is my gents journey. Dm me there, please feel free. I'm here to help you build the life that you want and you know, start this journey to become a gentleman or the journey to self-improvement more than anything else. So, again, I want to thank you guys. So so, so very much for listening today. Again, if you have any questions, you know how to reach out to me. Okay, so don't hesitate to do that. And just remember this you create your reality, take care.